And Samuel said to Saul, "The Lord sent me to anoint thee to be king over his people, over Israel: now therefore hearken thou to the voice of the words of the Lord. Thus saith the Lord of hosts, 'I have marked that which Amalek did to Israel, how he set himself against him in the way, when he came up out of Egypt. Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.'"
And Saul summoned the people, and numbered them in Telaim, two hundred thousand footmen, and ten thousand men of Judah. And Saul came to the city of Amalek, and laid wait in the valley. And Saul said unto the Kenites, "Go, depart, get you down from among the Amalekites, lest I destroy you with them: for ye showed kindness to all the children of Israel, when they came up out of Egypt."
So the Kenites departed from among the Amalekites, and Saul smote the Amalekites and defeated them. And he took Agag the king of the Amalekites alive, and utterly destroyed all the people with the edge of the sword. But Saul and the people spared Agag, and the best of the sheep, and of the oxen, and of the fatlings, and the lambs, and all that was good, and would not utterly destroy them: but everything that was useless and refuse, that they destroyed utterly. .
RUINS OF A ROMAN BRIDGE AT BETH-SHAN, OVER WHICH THE ROAD TO GADARA PASSED
Used by special permission of the Palestine Exploration Fund.
After the battle of Gilboa the bodies of Saul and his sons were found on the field by the Philistines and carried to the town of Beth-shan and fastened to the wall. But the men of Jabesh-Gilead heard of this indignity to the dead, and making a night march removed the bodies.
Then came the word of the Lord unto Samuel, saying, "It repenteth me that I have set up Saul to be king: for he is turned back from following me, and hath not performed my commandments."